Some of you already know I'm a member of BookCrossing, an amazing international book lovers' community. Because the number of members from several countries of this US-born organisation have been increasing, their supply store is preparing to go to print with new bookplates in other languages, including Portuguese. They've thought about using Ballycumber, our running book, as the art but have ultimately decided to get the people's opinions for this. After some discussion in the forum, launched by one of our most active members, Marcenda, we've agreed to try to propose a new piece of art that somehow captures the spirit of the language and BookCrossing, joining three elements: Portuguese tiles, an astrolabe and Ballycumber. The astrolabe, a navigational instrument that for many years, gave the Portuguese the exclusive ability to navigate open waters, hence vital in the discovery of maritime routes to other continents, is here a symbol of the world, where nations from different continents were united by a common language. The tiles, too, are typical feature in monuments of all those countries and the running books, well, they have been running for centuries, of course, and now more then ever between a fast Portuguese-speaking bookcrossing community.
So here are three drafts. Will you please send your opinions, whether you prefer option 1 (top), 2 (left) or 3 (right), or none of them and we should keep trying to find something better. (don't be shy!). Please note that these are rough sketches, the drawings are coarse, with little detail and all were quickly rendered with coloured pencils, while the final art is supposed to be watercolour. Oh, and although the bookcrossers' opinions will be the ones that ultimately count, I'd like to hear that of the others, too.

This is the second work I manage to finish during my watercolour classes. It shows my oldest daughter and one of our dogs during one of the walks we usually do near our house. I'm really enjoying this weekly art doses. Actually, these two hours twice a week are about all the art time I'm getting lately... I definitely need to improve this situation.

Right after I came from holidays, a friend told me about a watercolour course that was going to take place in our town, organised by an art gallery that had recently opened. I've been wanting to visit this gallery for some time, but the holidays came in between, so I hadn't had the chance to do it yet. So I just joined two good things together: I enrolled in the course and I finally visited the gallery before going in my first class and I must say I really liked the amazing and exquisite wood and metal sculptures of João Ferreira (just take a look at this one and this one), and the beautiful watercolours of Manuel Ferreira, who happens to be our teacher (you can see one of them here). The picture above shows the first (and so far only) work I did during the course. It is a view of the old town, inside the castle walls. The house on the far right was made up by me, to replace an ugly one that is actually there. One of the good things about painting and drawing is that you can change reality as you see fit!

This is the first time I'm writing this kind of post, but I really have to do it, so I hope you will forgive me. It has to do with the picture above, a view of Montesinho, a beautiful and wild landscape, part of a Natural Park and also a network of natural areas of European importance known as Natura 2000. This is where the most important of the last Iberian wolf populations lives, the home of birds of prey and an array of other incredibly diverse wild fauna as well as rare, often endemic flora.

Living close, I've been going there for many years for a walk, to show it to visiting friends, or just for a picnic with my family, as was the case this summer, when I did this sketch. Unfortunately, things are not how they used to be and the threat is that they will get much worse in the near future. It all started with a few wind towers on the Spanish side of the border, which is not protected (because in Spain, as far as I know and is, in my opinion, very logical, there are no windfarms inside protected areas). Instead of demanding an environmental impact assessment, as was its duty, the Portuguese Government just pretended nothing was happening. So the number of towers just kept growing.

During our picnic, we tried looking the other way and - like the Government - pretend nothing was happening and go on enjoying our day in the wilderness. But it was impossible. We were near the border and even if we looked the other way, we could not escape the sound of it! A constant, buzzing sound, just like that of motorway or city traffic in the distance. Truly horrible, for someone looking for a day in the wild, surrounded by the soothing sounds of nature... We had also taken one of our dogs with us and watching her panicking over the noise (probably much worse for the sensible dog's ears), we couldn't help wondering about what was happening to the poor wolves...

But the really bad news is the Portuguese Minister of the Environment has publicly declared that he wants to change the interdiction of building windfarms inside the Park, that has been proposed by his technicians. This proposal is supported by a series of studies that have proved that for Portugal to reach a desirable level of green energy production through windfarms, there is no need to sacrifice any protected area. Many people of the area, including, of course, tourism operators, are in favour of keeping the windtowers away from the Park. The great majority have no idea about what is going on. So why is this happening, you may ask? The old, sad reason: politics. By not interdicting them, the windfarms will be possible under certain conditions, which are neither clear or objective, meaning it will always be possible to use them to get political favour.

The windfarm interdiction is part of the regulation of the Plano de Ordenamento do Parque Natural de Montesinho, currently under public discussion. I am filling in my participation form (ficha de participação), available here, where I am declaring my support to the proposed regulation, that windfarms, together with other large infrastructures that represent landscape spoilers, should not be allowed inside the Park. I invite all of you who believe in this, to do the same. The form is in Portuguese, but you can fill it in in your own language, sign it and mail it to: Parque Natural de Montesinho, Bairro Rubacar, R. Cónego Albano Falcão, lote 27, 5300-044 Bragança, Portugal. But we need to hurry, the deadline to submit our opinions is the 17th of October.

Here's the last sketch from the holidays - and this was really the last one I did, in one of our last days on the beach. The sun had already set, but my husband and older daughter didn't seem to be willing to go back home...

O.K., I'm almost finished, there's this one and then just one more to go! This is a 5 min. sketch done while waiting for the kids to get ready for a walk. It shows a man and wife farmers, peeling corn-cobs and spreading them on the ground to dry in a field just across "our" farm. They did this every single day while we were there, either it was cloudy or the hottest of days . When we got up (O.K., not very early, but still...), the man was already there, then the wife would join him, then go away (probably to prepare lunch) until they got together again in the afternoon almost until sunset. The size of the field and the work ahead of them just left me amazed at their patience and perseverance.